My Evil Tan

This is the humorous post for the day. I have another below this about the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, which is significantly longer and more serious.

I found this great quote over the weekend on a website which I frequent:

In 1857, Brigham Young declared that apostates would "become gray-haired, wrinkled, and black, just like the Devil" (Journal of Discourse 5:332).

I was taught a whole bunch of crap like this as a kid, although I think the Church has mellowed out a little in recent years. I was also taught that when a person is baptized, their DNA is actually changed to make them literal members of the House of Israel. Perhaps it's things like this that will ensure that Science and Religion will never see eye to eye, since Religion seems to have a serious aversion to reality and truth.

Anyway... I'm pretty much an apostate Mormon, and if I lived in Mr. Young's time, he would also have like to have seen my throat slit for becoming such.

The thing is that up until a couple of years ago, I was the most devout, committed Mormon I could be. Sure I was filled with feelings of guilt and inadequacy, but that's just the way good Mormons are supposed to feel. It helps us stay humble or something.

The thing is, I got my first gray hair when I was 18, and now, I've got quite the salt and pepper thing going. Did my body know that I was eventually going to leave anyway, and it just started graying early because of it?

I've also been outdoors a lot more lately too, and my skin has gotten significantly darker. Actually I've got a couple of different tan lines, based on the style of clothing I've been wearing too. My involvement in triathlons has been completely independent of my disaffection from Mormonism, and it would seem that is the primary reason for my darker skin... Or has it been independent...

I guess at the end of the day, it comes down to this...

Either my gray hair and nicely tanned skin are a result of my impending and now current apostasy, in which case the reasons for such are purely coincidental,

OR

Mr Young was full of shit.

I think we all the the right answer to that question, don't we!